It’s been an unusually warm winter with lots of rain and temperatures reaching the 60’s last week.
Because of the weather, the lakes are ice free so the northern birds we’d expect to see aren’t here.
On the other hand, there’s a hotspot of unusual birds in south central Pennsylvania. The most amazing is this Townsend’s warbler in Cumberland County.
Townsend’s warblers breed in the Pacific Northwest and winter in Mexico. This one must have had a compass error, so it flew the correct distance to reach Mexico but it went the wrong direction.
It ended up in Carlisle, PA where Meredith Lombard took its picture.
(photo by Meredith Lombard)
hah, this was my test bird from the Melin project.
About brants, mentioned in a compass error, I’ve taken photos of them at the end of december, 12/22 – to be exact, near JFK(near Widlife Refugee @ Jamaica Bay), there were maybe hundreds of them, I’ve never seen them before:
http://y.delfi.lt/norm/63215/2121307_ct9PGe.jpeg
And, who haven’t seen yet, I would highly recommend documentary: Winged Migration:
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/winged-migration/
Don’t know, was it on PBS, but prolly best film about birds I’ve ever seen, no special effects on that one while filming, what’s hard to believe. Filming Winged Migration were used lightweight flying cameras. It’s incredible film by it’s beauty of views….
Full documentary on the site, but to fully enjoy film, I would recommend to purchase DVD or to find HD video.
Winged Migration is a good film. I saw it in a theater on the big screen when it first came out. Amazing photography!